It’s been a few weeks since we returned from our biggest family adventure to date. Even with the built in buffer day, we weren’t prepared for jumping back into our normal routine. Eloise was the only one who seemed fine on our first day back to the grind, but come Thursday her wheels came off too. You’d think after 8 days away from home we would be eager to get back, and we were…to a point. We LOVE our jobs and are very lucky to be employed by two wonderful organizations. We LOVE our home and where we live. Shoot, our little city was recently named the best restaurant city in the US! This on top of all of the other awards and record breaking tourism. It wasn’t about going back to normal life because we are pretty darn happy with our normal. But what we had just experienced was better than our normal.

For a minute, take away where we went because we will get into that. Just think of the week. For 6 nights and 7 days, we did not have access to the outside world. No TV, no internet, no cell phones, no emails, you get the point…no nothing. Well we did have a battery operated radio that got 5 stations, 4 in French and 1 American pop station that played the same list of songs over and over again. Adam Levine is big in this area. On that station one night, we did hear that Burt Reynolds died. That was the extent of news for the entire week. We haven’t confirmed that since we returned but RIP Burt, just in case. No we weren’t fed up with the world and searching for an escape or to shut it out in revolt. We just wanted to go to the Lavoie family camp to spend quality time together and it happens to be deep in the woods of Allagash.

Located less than 2 hours from Danielle’s hometown, she has a list of memories here a mile long. She even learned how to potty train in these woods!

This camp is also the location of our engagement, 8 years ago.

Unfortunately, it’s also where Braddock ate a corn on the cob that required a serious emergency surgery months later (thank God for pet insurance). No, we aren’t going to post a picture of that and we would have never guessed he would make it this long after that incident.

This camp was built in 1994 by Danielle’s father (Don), Mon Oncle (french for uncle), Pepere (french for grandfather) and others. It all started out as a plot of land that was measured by just walking the perimeter of the property with the previous owner, pacing it out with their feet. Watching Don talk about that day as he stood in the trees on the edge of the property line was like traveling back in time. “I had both of the kids with me that day and they were so young and I was just so excited.” It started out with a camper being parked on the property and fast forward to now with a breathtaking cabin built and maintained by the same owners who are all family. Now-a-days the camp is used almost entirely for hunting. Sadly, most of the big family trips have slowed and everyone is off doing their own thing.

During last winter, we started to map out our state park camping trips. We knew we would visit four but weren’t sure where and when just yet. We picked out the first 3 and decided to visit Aroostook State Park in September as #4. It hit us both, why don’t we just push on afterward and visit the camp in Allagash because it’s only another 2.5 hours away. As we studied our time off, we said, why don’t we stay for the week since it’s a holiday Monday. When we said this, we were half joking but after a few minutes we weren’t. We were on the same page almost immediately. No offense to all of the wonderful state parks but we’ve had this week circled in our calendar for over 8 months and brought it up constantly in anticipation.

Danielle’s grandparents came for lunch and knitting & crochet lessons

When lumping in Aroostook State Park, we were away from home for 8 days and drove 730 miles round trip in our state. This is a reminder to give a plug for audio books. Spending this much time in a car with a kid had us thinking of other ways to distract her without planting a screen in front of her. Zero judgement, just a choice, everyone do you. A friend gave us the idea of kids audio books and even though she’s still a tad young, no better time to start than now. We even somehow found the children’s book “Allagash, a musical fantasy for all”. Boy was it a treat for us adults as well as staying in line with our vacation. It was later confirmed by Don that the premise of the story was actually quite factual, but this version is told through the eyes of the animals. It played from the minute we left Aroostook State Park until we started down the dirt logging roads near the camp. Long story short, thankfully the good guy wins in the end and gets the girl.
We have been peppered with questions since we returned. How do you get by with no running water? No refrigerator for your food? What if there was an emergency? These were the most popular ones. Well just like if you were flying to Disney World for a week with your family in tow, you plan. We made a couple lists and just mapped things out ahead. There wasn’t much to it when we thought of our biggest obstacles and planned around them. Without going into all of the boring logistics, you do things like purchasing ice blocks instead of crushed ice because it lasts like 4 times as long. We also had two empty coolers for the ice blocks to get us through the week and we kept rotating them in. And no, you don’t hit all home runs. You can’t prepare for everything. For example, we didn’t take into account how much water (A LOT) the dogs would take from us but there is also a solution. We had a perfectly timed resupply of water for the dogs and dishes when Eloise’s grandparents came for a day visit, mid week.

The town of Allagash and the Allagash River Waterway are different, but the same. This camp is located in the woods of the town but is actually on the St. John river. The Allagash River ends in the town of Allagash and joins up with the St. John.

Pres. Trump doesn’t have to build one his walls up here because the St. John River plays a key role in separating the US from Canada with a natural border across a large area. The Allagash Wilderness Waterway will be another post some day, most likely when we are wrapping up this mission. That canoe trip is near and dear to our hearts and we plan to cap all of this off with bringing Eloise to our favorite place on earth.

The town of Allagash has a population of 222 people, which is down 12 people from the previous census. This explains why every person that passes you on the road waives hello. The same goes for every person out on their lawn, no matter how far back they are from the road. We left the camp road once during the week to walk among the wildlings. As Eloise’s grandparents headed back home after spending two nights with us we followed them into town to have lunch at Two Rivers Lunch. We are both embarrassed to say that we had never eaten there before. Let’s just say that from now on it will be tradition to dine here each and every time moving forward. We actually took pictures of our food (we never do this) because our burgers were that good, and that is again coming from 2 people who live in the foodiest place in America.

It’s hard to sum up our week in a post because this wasn’t a state park visit. We had the best week of our lives and no that’s not the subject line to a really nice insta photo with cool hashtags. We have a child now, and like any parent, love her more than anything in the world. Life is better now because of her. We took Eloise into the wilderness for a week and spent the entire time as a family. There were no errands to run, no emails, no texts, no whats the score of the big game, no nothing….just us. That is what was hard to shake more than anything when it was all over. We hadn’t been together as a family for more than a week since coming home from Maine Medical Center just days after Eloise was born. To finally be able to do that and then to do it there was really special. It was too good, in fact it was so good that it made our normal not so appealing when we returned to it. When we drove out on our last day, Ray became anxious but not in a good way. Danielle slowly became somber because she knows trips like this have been few and far between. It’s just so far. We know we can’t spend the rest of our days bathing in the river or making meals on the cast iron over a fire. We have all been on a vacations in our lives that makes us want to open the laptop the second we get home and book it again for next year. This is no different than that and everyone and every family searches for their special trip. Spending a week at the family camp in the Allagash happened to be ours.

The days were long but burned away quickly. With all of the travel we have both done in our lives, never have the stars been so bright at night. Watching Eloise play with ‘fishies’ in the river each day or how she knew exactly where mom stepped in fresh bear poop will never leave the memory bank. Most of the days she was ready for a nap 2-3 hours earlier than normal because of the time spent outdoors. On the last night she fell asleep in the seated position, folded over. Mom and dad ended all of the nights by the fire or inside with gas lights burning, reading or listening to an audiobook together. We had the campfire going for 7 days straight. The temperature dropped into the 30s the last couple nights; which made for good sleeping and a reason to break out the Allen’s Coffee Brandy with hot chocolate. We had the best Maine beers for lunch, dinner and bath time at the river. Danielle said it best as we made the transition from dirt to paved roads. It took a couple days to fully relax into a setting like that because of how opposite it was from everyday life, but by day 3 any weight had been lifted off our shoulders and we were carefree, just enjoying each day to the max.

This type of post could go on and on and it was hard not to share a 1,000 more pictures. Being an extra special week, we’ll keep most of the details to ourselves. We encourage everyone to take a trip like this. By that, we don’t mean in the middle of the woods in the Allagash, but a trip where you can truly relax and enjoy each other without any distractions, wherever that may be, doing whatever you all enjoy most. It’s not an easy thing to do in our current state of affairs but we will bet you a koozie that you won’t regret it. If it’s anything like our experience, you’ll truly see your spouse again and you might end up seeing your kids like you’ve never seen them before. Again, it is only been a few weeks since we got home and the laptop is open, planning out our return trip for next year.